FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Moscow International Security Conference Opens

April 4, 2018 (EIRNS)—The Seventh Moscow International Security Conference opened this morning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, with 850 guests participating, including defense ministers and delegations of military departments, experts and academicians from 95 countries. The heads of the following international organizations will address the forum—the United Nations; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Collective Security Organization; Shanghai Security Organization; Commonwealth of Independent States; and International Community of the Red Cross. More than 700 representatives of domestic and foreign mass media have registered to report on the conference.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, opened the conference by reading a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he reported that ISIS, despite its military defeat in Syria and Iraq, “retains its significant destructive potential, it can change its tactics and launch attacks in different countries and regions in the world.” Putin stressed that it is now necessary to think about new forms of “multilateral cooperation.” It would allow the parties “to consolidate the success” achieved in the fight against terrorism and “to prevent the further spread of this threat.”

Putin told the conference that the practice of some countries of violating national sovereignty on the pretext of fighting terrorism is inadmissible.

“It is important to organize international cooperation in order to terminate the activity of foreign terrorists, including those returning from flashpoints and the effective sharing of information on these terrorists, their movements and plans,”

he said. “Countries outside the region should not be allowed to intervene in sovereign states’ domestic affairs under the pretext of the war on terror.”

Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), warned that ISIS and al-Qaeda may merge into one terrorist group that would have cells across the globe and would be able to produce chemical weapons.

“Such an organization would have sleeper and active cells in many countries around the world with considerable experience of conducting military and subversive actions in field and city conditions, technologies and infrastructure to produce real rather than fake chemical weapons,”